The present invention pertains to a piling bin for flat mail pieces. Piling bins of this type are frequently found in mail sorting plants. In said system, a suitable transport system uses deflectors to supply piling bins with mail pieces, such as letters and large letters, which are stacked on these bins.
Mail pieces incapable of being processed by machine are recognized by a measuring section connected in series and removed. A system of this type should be able to process the widest possible spectrum of different mail pieces, where there is the problem that variation in mail piece parameters such as size, weight and surface condition may adversely affect the piling quality and the interruption-free and time-independent ability of a piling binto receive mail pieces.
A corresponding piling bin already has become known from EP 0407795 B1. This piling bin is suitable only for a limited spectrum of goods including light and flat mail pieces, such as normal letters or postcards, which may be inserted into a piling bin at high speed. In this connection, a pivotable guide fork arranged at the entrance guides mail pieces onto the piling bottom or onto stacked mail pieces, wherein the guide fork rests on the stack of mail pieces and is pivoted as a function of the degree of fill.
The piling bottom is pivotable at the edge shared with the impact wall which is inclined forward in the piling direction. The guide fork is curved on its support such that across the pivoting range, the pressure point is at a nearly constant minimum distance from the impact wall. In order to guarantee that stacked mail pieces will be oriented to the side wall, the impact wall, in addition, turns inward toward the side wall relative to the cutting edge.
In order to prevent a mail piece to be stacked from striking the back edge of a preceding mail piece at high speed and causing stacking error, a mail piece to be stacked must not contact the preceding mail piece by less than a minimum angle. In order to guarantee this even as the height of the pile grows (the guide fork approaches a horizontal position), the piling bottom pivots downward in the direction of a horizontal position as a function of the degree of fill.
If mail pieces having vastly different compositions with respect to size, thickness and weight are stacked in bins at a substantially lower transport speed than in the aforementioned solution, then the piling bin described is not suitable, since, for example, the guide fork would slow down mail pieces by differing amounts. The result would be unsatisfactory stacking quality.
Therefore, the underlying problem of the invention indicated in the features specified herein is to create a piling bin for flat mail pieces that are fed at a low speed and that have different sizes and thicknesses, which is configured in a way that achieves a secure, rapid and aligned transport of each mail piece to the front edge of the pile through minimized loss of energy due to impact, wherein it is necessary to prevent small mail pieces from standing up in the piling bin.
The advantage of the invention exists in the achievement of an optimal piling quality of flat mail pieces within a large spectrum of sizes and thicknesses at low transport speed with limited mechanical cost. Advantageous configurations of the invention are described in the subordinate claims. The invention is explained in greater detail with the aid of the figures in the following.
Shown is:
FIG. 1, a perspective schematic representation of a piling bin open on one side.